Real Life Honeymoon Feature - Hong Kong, Macau, Phuket, Koh Samui & Bangkok

Angela and Stuart Rimmer were married on 29th May 2010

WHERE?

Our honeymoon was a one month grand tour of; Hong Kong, Macau, Phuket, Koh Samui & Bangkok

WHEN?
June 2010

Who did you book your honeymoon with?
We feel lucky that we know an excellent online travel agent - Best at Travel, which we've used for the last 5 years, so they were able to tailor-make a trip to suit our exact requirements at a cost we were very happy with.

Why did you choose that destination?
We were lucky enough to have a month for our honeymoon so we decided that we'd like to experience a combination of city and beach time over 5 destinations to make the very most of our time together. June is an awkward time to pick a far away destination because of monsoon weather, but we completely adore Thailand - the people, food, scenery, history, things to do, as well as value for money and wanted to go back to visit again in style. We discovered that the monsoon only happened for an hour every 2 days! We'd never visited China and thought Hong Kong as a stopover would be ideal.
We love Las Vegas, and Macau is the LV of China so we thought we'd visit for a bit of the Vegas glitz whilst we were in the region.

What did you do?
There were so many things that we saw and did which were great fun. We ate and drank at some of Hong Kong's trendiest bars, and loved Stanley Market for shopping. We stayed in an a hotel casino in Macau, lost money on the roulette but loved the Cirque du Soleil show, cocktails in the Veuve Cliquot bar and the amazing food. We were lucky enough to stay at the Six Senses Samui in a private villa near the beach for a week of bliss in a paradise setting. In Samui, we loved snorkelling in Ang Thong marine park and massages on Chaweng high street.
In Phuket we stayed for a week in a Double Pool Villa at the Banyan Tree which our butler renamed 'Villa Rimmer' for us. This was a completely magical once in a lifetime experience which where we were made to feel like royalty.
We had fun sightseeing in Phuket, especially the Gibbon sanctuary. Finally, in Bangkok we had an incredible experience at Bed Supperclub where we danced the night away, and at The Oriental where we enjoyed High Tea (with lots of cake!). The aquarium was also superb and a bit of a hidden gem.

What was your most romantic moment of your honeymoon?
At the Banyan Tree Phuket on our last night, our butler recommended we ate at a restaurant near to our villa, overlooking a lake and the other private villas which was a beautiful setting. He then apologetically asked us to step outside and gave us a label and a pen each. He explained that in Thai culture, when people have hopes or dreams that they'd like to come true, they write their wishes on a label and attach it to a paper lantern which is lit and sent up to the heavens so it'll be read by the gods. This was a really private, heart-warming moment when we took it in turns to write our messages, make a wish and watch our lanterns travel upwards. I was so relieved that they chased each other and didn't go out until they were out of sight. This was one of many very romantic moments that I'll remember forever.

Why did you choose SendUsPacking?
Having lived together, like many couples before we got married, we are very fortunate to have many lovely things and preferred to give our family and friends the opportunity to help to contribute towards our honeymoon experiences, rather than awkwardly asking for money outright, or potentially being ungrateful for cut class or crockery which we already have.
It was a really good planning opportunity to do some research in the travel guides before we created our SUP webpage and it got us far more excited about our trip that we perhaps would have ordinarily been. We were more excited about our honeymoon than our wedding day, although that too turned out to be heavenly.